All this rhetoric about balancing the budget by kicking all those deadbeats off of welfare (TANF, food stamps, etc.) has convinced me that many people have an extremely limited understanding of the subject. I worked for USDA's Food and Nutrition Service for 32 years, so I have a pretty good understanding of how well those programs do, or don't, work.

The payment error rate in the food stamp program (now called SNAP) is only about 5 percent. This includes errors by both the participants and workers. It is very easy to make mistakes when applying for food stamps, as the application process is more complicated than most folks would believe. There is some fraud, but most errors are inadvertent. The largest cases of food-stamp fraud involve grocers that exchange cash or sell ineligible items.

As for the common belief that welfare recipients "drive a better car than I do," I investigated many complaints about that issue. In every case, the car in question belonged to a relative or friend.

Welfare is not a boondoggle. Cutting welfare will not balance the budget, any more than cutting taxes will.